Originally Posted by CLT Guy

It could happen in the very near future. The number of pilots willing to work at the regionals is shrinking at a pretty fast rate. The majors need to do something to attract pilots to fly the airplanes that feed them. The options for incentives are fairly limited. They have tried bonuses, but they have not really been successful. One of the things that will attract people to fly for their regionals would be the ability to advance to mainline.

Preferential hiring costs the mainline company NOTHING!!! They can still pay garbage wages at the regionals and people will line up to fly there. Heck, they could even pay less and people would do it.

Think about it this way, AAG wants to make sure that their regionals are staffed. How can they do it? What incentives can they offer? Lets say that you want to fly at American. If the only way that you could get to American would be to fly for Envoy or PSA, you would apply at Envoy or PSA. Period. If you had an AA seniority number, you wouldn't care what they paid you for the first couple of years, the schedule/benefits, etc... Your goal would be to work 5 years at the regional and then bid on that wide body slot when it opened.